Timbre! Unusual Instrumentation Playlist - Vol. I

Timbre, as Frank Zappa says in the Real Frank Zappa Book, is everything. But it’s also confusing. To a Westerner, the sitar eternally signifies the mysterious allure of the East, while – as Talvin Singh once pointed out – ‘in Bombay, an electric guitar is exotic’. Why is this?

ABOVE: A rare and dangerous example of the urethra flute.

This playlist argues that context, rather than the instrument itself, is the key. I hope to demonstrate this by putting fifteen instruments in an unexpected context.

It’s a playlist that plunges into the world of exotic tones with a banjo in one hand and an ocarina in the other, and comes out the other side with a sore head, yodelling.

It would be doing the merely obvious
to include such gimmicky instruments
as the trapezoidal harp (ABOVE).

I have deliberately steered clear of the more familiar examples of instruments being used in an unusual context. Much as I love the sitar on the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood, or Jethro Tull’s use of rock flute, and the whole of the Tubular Bells album, I’m looking here for juxtapositions of timbre that still have the power to surprise.

I hope you find yourself marvelling at the sound of a violin screeching across a dub track, or a sousaphone powering an rock tune, as much as I did.

Jungle Flute – Don Tracy & the Voodoo Family

Flute

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(Dance to the Music of) The Ocarina – Irving Berlin

Ocarina

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The Twisted Nerve – Bernard Hermann

Harp

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Jan Pahechan ho – Mohammed Rafi

Electric guitar

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Got a Match – Frank Gallop

Harpsichord

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I Touch Myself – Rolf Harris

Wobble board

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A Day In The Life – The Koto Ensemble

Koto

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K.G.’s Half Way Tree – Augustus Pablo & The Simplicity People

Violin

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Yaman (The Colonel’s Lady) – The Indo-British Ensemble

Sitar

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Donna Lee – Tom Slavicek

Banjo

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Prodigy Medley – The Banana Sessions

Sousaphone

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Take Five – Cayman Islands Steel Pan Jazz Trio

Steel pans

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Bag’s Groove – Leon Thomas

The yodel

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Oboe Mambo – Machito And His Afro-Cuban Orchestra

Oboe

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It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ’N’ Roll) – AC/DC

Bagpipes

Timbre! Unusual Instrumentation Podcast – Vol. I

 
If you can suggest any more for the next playlist, please leave a comment or contact me.

Oh, and have a happy new year!

Recordings and Found Sounds of Marrakesh (Moroccan Holiday Part III)

This is the third instalment of pictures and sounds from Morocco.

(See Part I here, and Part II here.)

Let's start with some traffic recorded on the way to the centre:

Traffic in Marrakech

When I Was Young - An Ipswich Hip-Hop Tale

Here is an example – rare to this blog – of some 21st Century Music.

When I saw the 'cover' of the CD which was given to my mother as a peace offering by an old friend of my brother's, I knew this was outsider music of a rather special kind:

From what I can surmise on the basis of the available evidence, this recording may have been some form of rehabilitative therapy.

Although, having said that, if it's cathartic, it certainly doesn't sound like it.

Young Pizzo's deconstruction of hip-hop beats, mannerisms and ideals is unlistenable in so many different, nuanced ways, I can only begin to list them here.

When I Was Young - Daniel Pizzo

However painful it may seem at the outset, this recording rewards close attention.

In particular, look out for references to girls (though never girlfriends), rabbits and drugs.

If anyone enjoys it (and what sick, degraded individuals they must be), there is a whole album of this. But most people will never want to listen to it again.